Harmony's Strength
by Manchester
Summary: What if Xander had felt differently about someone else besides Cordelia? Instead of a brunette, it could have just as easily been a blonde. Ah, young love. Thank God I’m over it.
1. Chapter 1

The worse day of Harmony Kendall's life had been when the girl's father had died.

This was close.

That morning, Harmony had woken up to realize that her "special friend" had arrived and from the way her body felt, for the next few days Nature was indeed going to be a mother.

A minor hint that her period was going to be a bad one was given to Harmony when she dragged herself into her bathroom and discovered on her chin a humongous pimple that meant she would have to keep her face down looking at the ground all day to prevent grossing out anybody greeting her.

Harmony's mood was not improved by the screaming fight she had with her mother over breakfast. Over the last few months, the girl had gotten more ill-tempered at Melody Kendall over the merest trifles, and today's Menstruation of Doom had been the last straw. Harmony finally stormed out of the house on her way to school despite the fact that what she really wanted to do was to crawl back into bed with a heating pad and a stupendous amount of chocolate.

She suffered cramps and bloating all through the school day, along with such weird effects as the traveling pimple. To be precise, the zit on her chin suddenly disappeared, only to reappear twice its former size on her butt in such a place that made it impossible for her to sit anywhere in comfort.

Being off balance finally took its toll at lunch. While just picking at her food, she had spilled her drink over her blouse and skirt, forcing her to get an emergency change of clothes from her locker. Harmony was suffering too much to realize what an enormous mistake she had made.

It was only apparent when she came out of the girls' restroom in her new outfit and saw Cordelia Chase glaring at her, lightning virtually shooting out of the eyes of the queen of Sunnydale High to zap towards the blonde and scorch every inch of her current clothing. Apprehensive, Harmony had stared at the rest of the Cordettes safely behind their angry leader, trying to see if they knew what she had done wrong.

The other Cordettes just looked blankly at one of their own trembling before a furious brunette flawlessly dressed and mirrored in perfect coordination by her followers. Which, up to that moment, had included Harmony, who looked down at her dress and understood with a sick feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with a reproductive function, that her new clothes now totally clashed with the head of her pack.

"Harmony. Let's talk."

At these words from Cordelia, a pair of the Cordettes moved from behind their mistress to walk past Harmony and stand behind her, preventing that girl from retreating into the restroom. The last Cordette shifted to stand by Cordelia's side, blocking off any escape into the school corridor, which started becoming crowded with onlookers who stopped, sensing the bloodshed that was coming.

Pausing to organize her thoughts, Cordelia's eyes narrowed, and then opened in mock surprise that she actually needed to point out the sins of the girl before her. Nevertheless, the faultless lips (absolutely no plastic surgery!) opened in a carrying voice that was heard throughout the hushed corridor, as Cordelia began verbally flaying alive Harmony.

It was the infamous "Cordy talk." When the brunette decide to assert her dominance over the sheep she allowed in her presence, Cordelia would randomly select one of the Cordettes every few months and basically destroy them with words alone: denigrating, disparaging, belittling, casting scorn, and demeaning them. Over basically everything such as their behavior, bodies, manners, fashion sense, taste, boyfriends, and whatever else in the girls' existence.

After Cordelia eventually finished her little chats, she would usually saunter off, leaving behind her a girl with a shredded sense of self-worth. Depending on how Queen C was feeling, it could take from a few days to a week until she would allow herself to accept again the cringing girl's allegiance. Until the next time it occurred.

Anybody wondering why any girl would allow this to happen to herself has never spent four years in an American high school. For those recipients in the Sunnydale higher education facility, the choice was simple and brutal: you took it, or you were out of the Cordettes.

Several hours later, when school ended, a side door of the high school slammed open and Harmony ran out, desperate to get away. Her body still ached from her biological functions, yet that pain was far less than the torment in her mind. She had been totally humiliated by Cordelia, and the word had gone fast around the entire school, with her seeing and hearing the smirks and mean laughter her presence brought on.

Now she was finally out of the school, and she could let loose her feelings. Running across the school's athletic fields, Harmony burst into sobs that continued until she was gasping for breath and slowing down to a trot, and then a quick walk with her head hanging down and tears streaming down her face to fall to the ground. Totally obsessed with her misery, Harmony wasn't paying the slightest attention to anything around her.

On cue, she walked directly into someone.


	2. Chapter 2

Uttering a scream of real pain now, Harmony staggered back a few steps, clutching the top of her head that had smashed into the upper torso of her collision's body. More tears welled in her eyes, only increasing as she tried to lift her head, as another scream came from her at the sudden spike of agony in her neck. Harmony stood trembling at the overwhelming aches of her body, with its accompanying blindness as she was unable to see anything through her tears, or to hear much of anything over the roaring in her ears.

"Owww! Why don't you….Harmony?! Hey, are you okay? Harmony?"

The girl felt her upper left arm being gripped strongly by someone and she was tugged in a direction by that person. Numbly, Harmony went without even thinking, her brain more than occupied with its hurts. After a few steps, the blonde was brought to a stop, and then she felt a downward push on her right shoulder. Still in a daze, Harmony, automatically bent her knees until she found herself sitting on a school bench, one of several along the field lines of the school football field.

"Wow, you hit hard, didn't you, Harmony? Hey, is something wrong with your neck? Lemme see if I can do anything."

Harmony was now looking down at the ground, her vision mostly blurred and her ears still ringing. She could see only a vague impression of someone's lower body, which included their legs and feet, as that person sat down besides her and someone's hand began rubbing her neck. Harmony whimpered, as the large, warm hand firmly massaged that part of her body. The hand stilled, pausing, as a concerned voice spoke, "Am I hurting you, Harmony?"

The girl, still unable to talk coherently, only shivered and tentatively shook her head. She could now do this, as there was less pain, while the hand resumed its skilled kneading, and the voice rumbled again, "Just tell me if I do anything wrong, okay, Harmony?"

Harmony didn't answer, but the fog of pain in her mind was beginning to clear, and as her neck muscles began to loosen and her head came up, she began paying more attention to the voice now starting to chatter. Not the words themselves, but the tone, the timbre, and the attitude. It all added up to one thing: simple kindness.

Harmony Kendall had not heard that emotion directed towards her this entire horrible day. She finally lost it.

The girl twisted on the bench, taking her fellow occupant by surprise, as she flung her arms around the stranger's upper body to clutch that person hard enough to force out a whoof! of air from their mouth, and then Harmony let her head and upper body fall against her captive's chest, as she started to wail at the top of her lungs.

Harmony's heartache was totally in the moment. She never knew how long she was like this, until she calmed down a little to realize she was now being firmly embraced by big, strong arms, one of these with its hand gently stroking her hair and the back of her head. The person whose arms she was in was also comfortingly rocking her back and forth, tilting her entire body in a gentle rhythm, as a vibrant voice murmured soothing nonsense.

Of course, the girl reacted to this in an entirely human way.

"No…no! I don't deserve this! I'm stupid, stupid, idiot, worthless, useless, tramp, just like she says! I can't have anything like this! I'm stupid, stupid, stu---"

In an explosion of effort, the girl was brutally thrust away from her safe harbor, her body being thrown back and then savagely jerked to a halt by hands that clutched the tops of her shoulders hard enough to send stabs of pain through her, yet this hurt was forgotten as these hands began shaking her hard enough to send her head bobbing helplessly. Her ears were also assaulted as violently as the rest of her body.

"DON'T EVER SAY THAT! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! NOT BY YOU OR ANYONE ELSE! NOBODY CAN SAY THAT TO YOU!"

Harmony was unable to look at who was shouting at her. Her jerking head, plus her eyes nearly swollen shut from all her crying made it possible for her to only see short glimpses of blazing brown eyes over a wide-open roaring mouth.

"NO MATTER WHAT PEOPLE SAY, YOU'RE YOU, AND NOBODY BUT YOU! BE WHAT YOU ARE, NOT WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT YOU, LIKE JUST SOMEONE TO BEAT DOWN AND HURT! I KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE, AND YOU CAN GET THROUGH IT!"

At this, the hands came off Harmony's shoulders. Deafened and trembling, Harmony's head fell and she numbly stared at the heaving chest of the furious shouter, until that became still. Then, arms came around Harmony again, and gently pulled her against the other's body. As they came together, she turned her head until the left side of her face came to rest on the upper body of the one holding her in the embrace, and she felt someone's chin perch on top of her head. The girl heaved a deep sigh, and she allowed herself to totally relax, knowing instinctively she was safe and protected, as she hadn't been since her father died.

Harmony would have willingly stayed that way forever; however, her body soon firmly reminded her that she needed to get home. The girl stirred, and the arms holding her relaxed at once, letting her loose. Harmony's hands came up to rub her face, and she felt how damp it was from all her weeping. She groped for her purse, only then realizing she had left it back in her school locker. A look of dismay appeared on Harmony's face as she glumly thought there wasn't any hope of Kleenex or tissue at hand.

A voice spoke over her head, as the other's arms started unbuttoning their flannel shirt.

"Here, Harm, use this. You can even blow your nose on it, since it's already got girl cooties on it."

For the first time that day, a smile passed over Harmony's features, and she even managed a giggle. She watched in growing interest as fingers finished unbuttoning the shirt to pull it off, showing a bare and strong male chest that was fully revealed as the shirt was offered to the girl.

Harmony took the shirt and lifted it to her face, cautiously rubbing at first, and then harder as she enjoyed the soft, cool cloth on her overheated face. And yes, she did blow her nose on it, to the mock-anguish sounds of disgust coming from the other.

Now that she could again breathe easily through her nose, Harmony smelled the strong male scent clinging to the shirt, mixed with soap and deodorant. It sent tingles down her spine, as she finally looked up to see who had comforted her.

Xander Harris!


	3. Chapter 3

Harmony Kendall spent enough time gaping at the teenage boy for his easy smile to flatten, as he finally realized she hadn't recognized him at all after walking straight into him. A moment later, Xander's lips twisted into a cynical smirk as he pointed at his shirt still clenched in Harmony's hands. "Hey, Harmony, you wanna hand that over? After all, I've still got my loser germs on it."

"No! You were nice!" blurted out Harmony, clutching Xander's shirt to her. At an unexpected memory, she suddenly gulped, recognizing with horror her own words that she had taunted the boy with, just weeks earlier as part of Cordelia's and the other Cordettes' denigrations of the usual school targets. Of which Xander Harris had been one for years. And years. And years.

Harmony actually cringed away in shame from the boy, starting to tremble as her eyes dropped. She'd had one horrible day, but it couldn't possibly compare to what Xander had gone through most of his school life. Worse, she'd contributed to it, to someone who'd never done anything bad to her. As her stomach turned over, Harmony felt faint and started to tilt off the bench.

"Whoa! Easy there, Harm, if you gotta puke, try not to get it on my shoes." Despite the casual tone, the quick slide over by Xander to Harmony's side to put his arm around her shoulders, to hold her steady and on the bench, was evidence enough of the boy's concern.

Choking slightly, Harmony turned her head to look straight into Xander's face from a few inches away, easily able to see the worried care on the boy's features. She couldn't hold his eye, dropping her head to mumble, "Wha….why are you so nice? I….I….said and did the nastiest things I could think of to you, just for fun!"

There was a pause, until Harmony couldn't bear it and looked Xander again in the eye, seeing he was frowning thoughtfully. At last, he shrugged, Harmony's own body shaking along with him as his arm was still around her. "Hey, I've had worse. A lot worse."

"Huh?!"

"Yeah," continued Xander. "From people who should never -- ever -- have done it." His face became so bleak that Harmony's heart sank at seeing this.

"Anyway," he went on briskly in a tone that Harmony got caught up by, until it was too late. "What really made me mad was what you, her, and the rest of Bitch Cordy's skanks did to Willow! All of you made her cry!" From a few inches, Harmony stared into his face now showing pure rage.

There was no possible spoken answer to this. Harmony, frozen with terror in Xander's grasp, did the only thing that could have alleviated the teen's anger. She blushed.

Not the simple flush of the features, but the heavy redness of the full upper body during absolute mortification, a scorching actual weight that feels like five pounds of molten lead has been injected under the skin.

Gagging past the lump of guilt and self-loathing that had arisen in her throat, Harmony stuttered, "I…. I'm really, really sorry, I'm so sorry…."

Watching Harmony's ultimate chagrin, Xander's blazing eyes began to slowly soften as he understood the girl truly realized her offense to his bestest bud. His anger started to dissipate as Harmony abjectly began her genuine apology. "No, no, Harm. You don't tell me you're sorry. You tell Willow."

Harmony instantly understood, and began jerkily nodding. "I promise, I really do. Monday at school. In front of the entire school, if you want. If she wants."

Xander gave a satisfied nod. "I'll hold you to that, Harm. Monday morning, bright and early."

At that, both teenagers fell silent, understanding a solemn compact had been made. The two young people sitting on the school bench now spent a few moments mulling over the events of what had taken place here -- until they both suddenly realized Xander's arm was still around Harmony's shoulders and they were close enough that the sides of their bodies were touching.

Sheer embarrassment can do wonderful things. A split second later, Xander was at the far end of the bench away from Harmony, letting the arm that had been around her fall limp to his side, and becoming agonizingly aware that the seat of his pants was telling the rest of his body they were damn lucky an instantaneous slide away from the girl had just caused searing friction instead of an ass full of splinters. God bless metal school benches.

Harmony herself had made a panicky jump directly up and away from the bench, landing in a crouching posture on her feet and clutching Xander's shirt in her clenched fists, staring wide-eyed into the distance as another blush came over nearly all of her body.

She cautiously turned to look at the boy, and she had to fight down giggles at his dumbfounded expression. Harmony took a few steps toward him, her courage returning as the boy now looked sheepishly at her, and she held out his shirt. "Uh….Xander, you can have this back now."

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Fortunately, Harmony was close enough for Xander to just reach out his arms to collect his shirt without having to get up off the bench. Not that he could have done that without giving a yowl of pain due to his scorched butt. Trying to get his mind off this, Xander shook out his shirt and began putting it back on. When he'd finished buttoning it, Xander glanced up, and he was startled to see Harmony standing before him.

The girl was giving him a strange look, composed of half gratitude and half caution, and then her features firmed as she came to a decision. In a smooth descent, her upper body leaned forward as Xander's mind and body froze, giving Harmony the perfect opportunity for her to kiss him directly on the middle of his forehead.

Harmony straightened up and took a step away, both startled and happy about what she'd done, and she looked at the teenage boy with the immobile features. Shyly, the girl said, "Thanks for….everything, Xander. I….I guess I'll see you Monday."

A few seconds went by, as Harmony waited for Xander to say something, with the girl shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Finally, the boy's mouth opened.

"Hrmth glutch joobleck, miffle bworkna, plottmen."

A bewildered girl stared at a slack-jawed Xander, who wasn't looking at where Harmony had moved; instead, he was keeping his eyes firmly fixed at the exact height and sightline where her large breasts had been a few inches from his face at the moment of her kissing him.

"Uh, right," cautiously said Harmony, backing up and nervously watching the boy keeping his gaze straight ahead. "Well, bye."

"Blerf."

Harmony turned, and she began walking away. After a minute or so, her curiosity got the best of her, and she looked over her shoulder. Still sitting on the bench, Xander Harris was staring into the distance, his mouth open and apparently his brain in the "off" position.

The teenage girl shook her head in disbelief and continued her departure.


	4. Chapter 4

As she walked home on the sidewalks of Sunnydale, Harmony Kendall was thinking hard about a certain young man.

Xander Harris. Class clown. Goofball. Slacker. Twinkie-lover.

Protector of Willow Rosenberg.

Harmony considered the last. As long as she could remember, the boy had looked after the girl with the red hair. The usual male school bullies targeting the boy had been met with a grin or a quip, and when that hadn't been enough, a quick and direct punch that usually sent these guys looking for easier prey. Regarding the girl named after a tree to be this kind of victim usually proved that besides being a bully, they were also stupid.

Any boy laying a finger on his bestest bud sent Xander berserk, with consequences for those idiots including lost teeth, broken noses, and in one serious case that had gotten Xander suspended for a week, a concussion. The word had gotten around the schoolyard fast: touch Willow and you'll get hurt. That guy's crazy.

Harmony winced at bad memories that demonstrated while Xander could control himself while female bullies tormented his friend, it was solely for a single reason: boys didn't hit girls. Her face flamed in guilt as Harmony remembered how she and the other Cordettes would follow Cordelia's lead in taunting Willow, not just with words, but also physically, with pinches, slaps, and shoves. All too many times, the redheaded girl had run crying into the arms of her friend, who hugged her while glaring over her head at those who dared do this and would escape his punishment, just because of their gender.

Besides her guilt and shame, Harmony was also startled to feel another emotion: envy. She'd never had a boy treat her the way Xander treated Willow. Looking down at her body, the girl grimaced. Ever since she had grown curves, guys only wanted one thing. While she had managed to effectively deal with drooling males, with experiences ranging from slightly scary to somewhat funny (Xander was not the first boy she had reduced to babbling in tongues), Harmony felt a longing for someone who was willing to care for all of her, not just what her lingerie covered.

The girl on her way home thought further about Xander and his life. For one thing, everybody changed their voices while talking about his parents. His best male friend (a guy named….Jess? Joseph?) had disappeared last year, one of Sunnydale's runaways. Currently, Xander spent a lot of time hanging out in the school library, a place Harmony herself had never visited, with that older British guy, the librarian, Willow herself, and the short blonde cheerleader, the transfer from Los Angeles, the one with rumors that she had been in a lunatic asylum before coming to Sunnydale.

Harmony's eyes narrowed as she went over in her mind Xander's current friends, especially the one with the weird first name and a too-successful diet. Buffy Sommers, Summit, something like that, who was evidently not a natural blonde, a total brain, or someone with a boob job, if only because a bust had to exist there in the first place for silicone to be added.

Straightening up as she walked, Harmony took a deep breath and smirked, thinking to herself there were benefits of occasional backaches. In a much better mood, Harmony lengthened her stride, swinging her hips more, and letting her chest bounce a bit higher.

Behind her, she missed seeing a male student at USC Sunnydale riding his bicycle to campus veer off the sidewalk into someone's front yard and over a flowerbed, a garden gnome, and a rake, until colliding directly with a birdbath, all after being distracted by catching sight of a truly hot babe.

Now seeing her house and ignoring the angry yelling of a homeowner back up the block noticing what had happened in their front yard, Harmony contemplated a final judgment on the existence of Xander Harris. It was subtle, considering it had happened only over the last year, but once the girl had thought it over, it was clear that the boy had become much more confident and assertive than before. Maybe he was growing up?

Harmony turned into the concrete pathway leading to the front door of her home, while thinking, maybe she should grow up.

The girl paused before the two steps leading up to the porch and the front door. Making a decision, Harmony turned left and went around the house, to the side kitchen entrance. Looking through the kitchen window, she saw her mother sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen nook, drinking a cup of coffee and looking tired from her job waitressing at one of Sunnydale's restaurants.

Harmony quietly came through the kitchen door, with her mother giving her a tentative smile as the girl approached the older woman sitting at the table. Melody Kendall nearly spilled her coffee as she was engulfed in a fierce hug from her statuesque daughter, who had gotten her size from her dearly-missed father.

"Mommy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry about everything," babbled the bent-over girl to the smaller woman with a startled expression on her face. With some difficulty getting past the tangle of Harmony's limbs, Melody managed to put down her cup and return the embrace.

"That's….all right, honey," murmured the woman to her now-sniffling daughter still holding her mother in a tight hug that was beginning to produce numbness at various points. Melody gently nudged Harmony into the direction of the other chair at the table, and her daughter finally let go to sit there. "What brought this on?" inquired Melody.

At the table, Harmony took a deep breath and began talking, at great length. It finally ended up with the girl sharing Chinese take-out and lots of ice cream with her mother, all while in conversation with Melody like never before in the younger woman's life about anything and everything. Including, quite casually, a young man named Xander Harris.

That weekend was one of the happiest of Harmony's life. She spent the entire time with her mother, around the house and in town, cleaning, shopping, eating together, and walking around the neighborhood, all with the simple joy of being with family.


	5. Chapter 5

Monday morning arrived. Even in Sunnydale, hiding under the bedcovers didn't prevent this from happening.

In her bedroom, an incredulous Harmony was searching through her dresser drawers and the closet. She couldn't believe how much of her clothing had been brought based on a single factor: how Cordelia Chase would approve of it.

After digging down to the very bottom of her bedroom closet, Harmony finally found an outfit she had never worn before, a birthday gift last month from a relative who had sent her an expensive green dress that went well with her blonde hair. However….Cordy didn't like green. So, the tall girl in the bedroom, who was now calling herself a total idiot and unhappily agreeing with this self-criticism, had never had the courage to wear it to school.

Biting her lips, the girl in the bra and panties held the green dress before her, checking its fit and style in the full mirror attached to her closet door. It looked okay, but did she really have to….? At that, Harmony actually growled at her reflection, which looked startled, and then the face of the girl in the mirror changed to stern resolve. A quick wriggle into the dress resulted in a last check of herself in the mirror and a realization that she looked….good. This was confirmed by Melody at the breakfast table, a motherly encouragement to her daughter that made up for the fact the girl could barely touch her food.

An hour later, Harmony stood in the busy school corridor before first period, her stomach turning over. She nervously looked around, ignoring the crowd, a lot of them eyeing her new dress, with the girls accurately estimating its couture and cost, and the guys enjoying the tightness of the dress over a spectacular figure.

What happened next passed into school legend, with every student of Sunnydale High later claiming to have been there.

For Harmony, the two people she had been simultaneously expecting and dreading finally arrived. Xander Harris, wearing one of his eye-searing Hawaiian shirts, came through the front doors of the school, slouching at the side of Willow Rosenberg, who was chattering away nineteen to the dozen.

"….and then Buffy stopped in the middle of everything, when there were at least three more of them, just to check on her shoes! She didn't even look up when one of them took a swing at her, blocking it with the other hand when she pulled up her foot to look at the back of the heel! She really got mad then, 'cause she yanked off her shoe and stood there yelling at them, shaking her shoe at the one in front of her and then shoving it under his face to show where she had a scratch on the leather, and then she just stood there in one shoe and one bare foot in her stocking, and, well, you can guess what happened next…."

"Mr. Pointy got busy?"

"Yeah! And she complained all the way back home, 'cause even with the receipt, she can't ever return it, and….and….what are you looking at, Xander?"

Harmony had stopped listening long since, standing frozen and waiting to catch Xander's eye. Her entire body quivered as the young man's casual glance around the corridor ended with an astonished eye-blink and dropping his jaw when seeing Harmony standing there in her expensive dress.

Willow had gone a step ahead of her friend until she also halted and followed his gaze to see what was so interesting. The redhead's sudden expression of surprised dislike made Harmony quail, knowing Xander's friend had good cause for her loathing of the blonde. Nevertheless, Harmony took a deep breath and started toward the two teenagers.

"Harmony!"

The girl in the green dress spun around at the imperious calling of her name, absolute dread overcoming her. Through the school corridor, Cordelia Chase stalked, followed by the trio of Cordettes. The queen of Sunnydale High moved in an absolutely straight line towards Harmony, with teenagers who were less than the dust under her feet scrambling to get out of her way.

The brunette in the designer clothing breasted through the waves of students, arrogantly not paying them the slightest attention. If the Titanic had moved through the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on a dark and cold night on its way to a fateful collision with the same level of confidence Cordelia now showed, that vessel would have turned an iceberg into a million tons of ice cubes and Jack and Rose would have lived happily ever after.

Stopping in front of Harmony, Cordelia ran a cold eye over the other girl's dress, and as her displeasure reached eleven on the emotion meter, Miss Chase commenced ripping into one of her sheep:

"How dare you wear that rag!"

Six words, that's all it took.

CRACK.

The sound of the slap echoed throughout the hushed school corridor. Cordelia Chase, totally unready for it, was actually knocked off her feet to land on the finest ass in Sunnydale High.

Harmony, now recovering from her arm swing and her hand beginning to throb, took absolutely no notice of the sudden disbelieving uproar from the other students present, the three Cordettes frantically trying to aid their mistress sitting on the corridor floor, and the frenzied shrieks of Queen C herself discovering an actual drop of blood on her lower lip. As sounds that resembled a Civil War soldier undergoing a double amputation came from the clutch of the trendiest group of girls in school, Harmony wheeled around and headed for two specific people.

Willow couldn't decide what to stare at, her greatest enemy in life screaming on the school floor, or her second-greatest enemy who had done this and was at this moment now coming in her direction. The redhead's brain essentially dove for cover and cowardly left her body on its own, swaying gently as Harmony came nearer.

Xander couldn't believe what he was seeing, either. Not only had the "We Hate Cordelia Club" had its fondest wish come true, but when the brunette had landed on the floor, she had bounced hard enough for her legs in her skirt to spread open.

*You saw panties.*

*Pink ones.*

*Brain overloading. Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!*

*(Harmony's coming here.)*

*You saw panties.*

*(Yeah, they were great, but, uh, Harmony's coming here.)*

*Panties.*

Xander's sense of self-preservation basically rolled its eyes, and decided to pay a quick visit to the subconscious until the coming carnage was over.

The teenage boy blinked, and he became aware of Harmony standing before him, looking directly in his eyes. Before he could do anything, her hands came up to cup his face, and she leaned forward to give him a scorching kiss that lasted long enough for those specific brain cells in his head that dealt with long division to happily perish from oxygen deprivation.

Harmony stepped back from a paralyzed Xander, and she turned to face Willow at his side, whose gaping mouth was wide open enough for the blonde girl to see the redhead's tonsils. "Willow, I want to---"

"HARRIS!"

Principal Snyder, having emerged from his lair, strutted through the hordes of students blocking the corridor and stopped to stand in front of his most-detested student, while beginning to rant at Xander. "I know this is all your fault! I'm going to make sure you're expelled for this, and hopefully, assault charges will be pressed!"

Pausing to take a breath, Snyder's temper only increased at being ignored by the goofily-grinning teen looking over the smaller man's head. The principal paid no attention to someone behind him tapping the man on his shoulder, brushing it off while continuing his harangue. "Now I'll finally see the last of you and that fashion disaster you call a shirt, and--- What?!"

That last outburst was the result of someone again tapping the principal on his shoulder, only this time much harder, and digging in their fingernail, quite painfully. Snyder spun around, only to find himself staring at eye level at an impressive bosom. Knowing he risked a sexual harassment accusation, the principal hastily jerked up his gaze to look into the furious face of a young girl, whose name he currently couldn't remember. Any attempt to recall this piece of information was ended by the man being blasted by the girl's voice at the top of her lungs.

"QUIT STARING AT MY BOOBS, YOU LITTLE TROLL! XANDER DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! I WAS THE ONE WHO SLAPPED THAT BITCH ON THE FLOOR, AND IF YOU WANT TO DO YOUR JOB, YOU SHOULD SEND ME TO DETENTION!"

A minute later, Harmony, on her way to the detention room, strode through the packed school corridor, ignoring the awed expressions on every student's face staring at her. Her own face was set, not showing the pride surging through her. She didn't give the slightest damn about the week of detention she had received, the phone call her mother was going to get, and the disciplinary mark on her school record.

It was all worth it, when she had left the scene of the crime and on the way she saw Xander's ear-to-ear grin and the cheerful wave the boy had given Harmony, pausing in his continuous pounding of Willow's back to get his friend to start breathing again.


	6. Chapter 6

Hours later, Harmony walked out the school front entrance, having served her first day of detention. She stopped at the top of the stairs to the entrance, looking over the now deserted front of the school and the empty parking lot in the light of the sunset announcing the end of the day.

"Hey, Harm."

Harmony jumped slightly, not expecting anyone to be around, and she spun to see Xander leaning against the outside school wall. The boy pushed himself away from the wall, stuck his hands in his pockets, and strolled towards Harmony, his usual grin perhaps a bit wider than usual. Stopping in front of her, Xander casually said, "It's getting kinda dark. Can I walk you home?"

She thought her heart would explode with joy. Forcing down the impulse to smile widely, the girl just as casually said, "Sure. Let's go."

Both of the teens headed down the stairs. At least, Xander walked. Harmony floated.

As they left the school behind them, Harmony was content just to be in Xander's company, shooting glances at him out of the corner of her eye, to confirm he was indeed there and at her side.

"Eeep!"

A horrified squeak came from the young girl, who stopped short on the sidewalk, as a terrible realization formed in her mind about another girl who spent most of her time in Xander's company.

"What's up, Harmony?" a concerned Xander asked, also stopping and turning to look at the girl, who was staring down shamefacedly at the ground. She brought back up her head to show a desolate expression that was also in her voice as she answered Xander.

"I….I didn't apologize to Willow today, Xander."

Xander roared with laughter, reaching out with his right hand to pat Harmony's shoulder. Grinning at her as he brought back his hand, the teenager chuckled, "You were kinda busy today, Harm. Hey, it can wait." Turning and walking away, he looked over his shoulder at the girl, with his expression confirming she should come along, and continued, "'Sides, Willow wasn't in any condition to deal with anybody about anything the rest of the day."

Harmony scampered forward, slowing down only when catching up with Xander, and mentally telling her limbs to stop trembling over something that was only a casual touch. To avoid thinking about it, Harmony carefully inquired, "Ah, what do you mean, Xander? She, uh, wasn't mad about anything?"

Xander snickered. "Well, it was kinda hard to tell, considering Willow went through a record babble about the whole thing that lasted at least fifteen minutes and three paper bags she had to blow into to prevent passing out. One of those bags popped when she got sidetracked over the possibility of Cordelia flying out specialists from the Mayo Clinic to look at her face."

"Oh." Harmony's voice was very quiet.

Xander looked with concern at the girl. "Hey, just relax, will ya? Trust me, if you got in deeper trouble, you'd already know about it. They don't delay in giving you the bad news. Besides, from what I heard from stuff getting passed around, all that Queen C has is a pretty spectacular bruise and a little cut inside her mouth. Nothing that needs a doctor, though I bet she'll milk it for everything she can get. Be out of school for a couple days, maybe getting a fancy gift from her rich folks. Believe me, she'll soon swank back in as soon as the swelling goes down, expecting sympathy for her horrible wound."

Harmony had to quietly giggle over the last, knowing Xander had perfectly described the brunette's future behavior. She looked over to see Xander smiling at her, and her insides turned to goo, especially as his gaze passed over her body, looking at her dress.

Xander's easy tone became awkward, with him muttering, "I think Cordelia deserved it all, Harmony. That's a….a nice dress you've got on." The boy faced forward as he continued walking, his face flaming as he finished complimenting a girl about her clothing for the first time in his life.

Harmony didn't speak to Xander for the rest of the trip to her home, just wearing an euphoric smile on her face as she walked by his side.

Finally, under Harmony's guidance, they ended up on the sidewalk at the point where the concrete pathway started toward her house. Xander cleared his throat, and said, "Well, now's my chance to prove I'm a total coward by deserting you in the face of the enemy, namely your parents."

Harmony smiled a little sadly. "It's just me and my mom, Xander. My dad died years ago, just before we moved here."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I, uh, hope she isn't too mad about today."

The girl's smile became a bit happier, looking at Xander's concerned face. "I don't care. It was worth it, and anyway, she's a great mom. I'll take whatever she gives me."

"Wow. You're really lucky, you know that, Harm?" Xander turned his head to look at the small, comfortable house, with an expression of absolute longing on his face. Mystified, Harmony stared at the boy, wondering why he was clearly yearning for another's household.

Her concentration was broken by Harmony noticing a flicker of motion behind the curtained front windows of her home. Xander saw this too, and he hastily turned to the girl, holding out his hand. "Well, see ya, Harm." As Harmony reached out to shake hands in goodbye, Xander's next words rushed out, "Uh, if you don't mind, would….could I walk you home again after your detention tomorrow?"

Harmony's hand clasped around Xander's bigger hand without her even thinking about it, and she managed to keep her voice even as she looked at the boy's anxious face and answered, "That'd be great, Xander. See you same time, tomorrow, front of the school, after my detention."

Xander's face split in a wide grin, and he gently shook her hand, and then he drew his own hand out of her grasp, nodding farewell to her and turning around, he stuck his hands back into his pockets and strolled down the block to the far corner. As he turned to the right to go down the side of the block, he looked over to where Harmony was still standing in front of her home and waved at her. Harmony waved back as nonchalantly as possible, until he passed out of sight behind the house at the corner.

The girl took a deep breath, and started up the walkway to her home, knowing she was facing an unpleasant confrontation with her mother over the day's events. There was no point in further infuriating her parent by delaying or anything else. Nevertheless, Harmony had to fight down the impulse of doing exuberant cartwheels toward the front door of her home.

Opening the front door, Harmony found, as expected, Melody Kendall standing tensely in the front hallway, clenched fists resting on her hips, and a furious expression on that woman's face.

"Harmony!" barked her mother. "What did you do today in school to--- ufff!"

That sound by Melody was caused by Harmony walking towards the woman, instead of meekly stopping, and engulfing her mother in an adoring hug, cutting off her angry words. The older woman's face showed sheer astonishment, and then quick suspicion that her daughter was trying to avoid being disciplined, and then back to wonderment, as Harmony kissed her mother gently on her cheek, and still holding her in an embrace, the girl softly said to Melody, "Mommy, I'm ready for my punishment. Whatever you think is best, even a spanking, is okay."

"Two weeks grounding! Starting now!" blurted out Melody, her mind whirling at her daughter's submissiveness. The woman struggled out of her daughter's embrace, and the mother directed an expression that was half-distrust and half-worry at Harmony. Melody only became more concerned at Harmony's composed nod of acceptance. This was not going the way the older woman had expected.

Melody hesitated, and said in a much calmer voice that was still overlaid with apprehension, "Harmony, before I do anything else, I want to know exactly what happened, and I want the truth, you hear me?"

Once again, Harmony calmly nodded, and she sat down in one of the armchairs in the front parlor of the house. Melody said down in the other armchair, facing her daughter, and she anxiously waited for Harmony to speak. The girl looked steadily and her mother, and she began talking.

A few minutes later, Harmony finished her story. Across from her, Melody still kept her hands over her face, where she had put them in the middle of the narrative, strange muffled sounds coming from behind her fingers as her daughter had continued her account. Now feeling more apprehensive, Harmony watched her mother bring down her hands, with the woman's eyes closed and her lips strangely twisted. Finally, Melody's eyes opened to stare at her daughter, and in a choked voice, the woman said, "Well, that story doesn't top any of my high school memories, but it does equal a couple of them."

Harmony's mouth fell open, and she stared at her mother, astonished at the wry expression on her parent's face. Melody dryly chuckled, and she said, "Harmony, I was actually a teenager myself once, and I spent four of those years surviving the other savages at Roosevelt High in my hometown."

A tentative smile began to appear on Harmony's face, only to vanish at her mother's direct look and somber expression. The older woman continued in a grave tone. "I'm still not happy with what you did. Even if you were provoked, you shouldn't have hit her. As for the….rest of it, well, I suppose you're getting the correct school punishment. Here….I hope you realize that there may be other consequences of your actions. Serious consequences. Yet….if things don't go any further, we'll just leave it alone."

Sighing, the woman got up out of her armchair and looked down at her subdued daughter in her own chair. "Don't think you're getting away with anything, Harmony. The grounding I gave you still stands. Now, I'm going to lie down and cool off. You can make dinner tonight." Shaking her head, the woman turned and left the room.

Pausing just outside the parlor, Melody glanced behind her. She saw her daughter curling up in her armchair, staring off in the distance, and the strangest expression on the girl's face. It was a smile, and if Melody had thought there was anything gleeful or triumphant about it in having things go better than Harmony had the right to expect, the woman would have come back and made her daughter seriously unhappy. However, this smile was….blissful.

As the woman uneasily watched, Harmony, without noticing her mother's intent stare, mouthed a single word and then sank back into her chair, totally happy. Melody wasn't a lip reader, but she could easily comprehend what her daughter had said.

*Xander.*

A very subdued Melody Kendall walked to her room, absorbed in her thoughts, and coming to a decision that she needed to make a lot of phone calls.


	7. Chapter 7

On Tuesday evening, the two teens arrived at the sidewalk in front of Harmony's home, once again walking from Sunnydale High while casually chatting about anything and everything in the world. As they stood together, just as he had done yesterday, Xander stuck out his hand to say goodbye. An intent light in her eyes, Harmony ignored this and stepped to stand directly in front of the boy and leaned forward to plant a soft kiss directly on Xander's lips.

The young man totally froze, only his eyes widening and bulging as the kiss continued, with Harmony keeping her lips lightly pressed against his for a good half minute. Finally, the girl broke off the kiss and stepped back, smiling at the paralyzed boy. Harmony then turned and briskly strode up the walkway to the house, going up the stairs to enter the porch. Only then did she turn around to check on Xander.

The place where he had been in front of her home was empty, and Harmony looked up the sidewalk to see Xander weaving along and away from her house, his face blank even when he clipped his shoulder against an oak tree growing in its position between the sidewalk and the street curb, this accident sending him bouncing off diagonally across the sidewalk. The boy seemingly paid no attention to this, as he continued zigzagging on the sidewalk while walking away. In the growing dark, he soon disappeared, leaving Harmony softly giggling to herself. *Next time, tongue.*

At school on Wednesday, Harmony and Cordelia met again.

It was purely by accident. Early in the school day, Harmony learned her recent opponent had returned to the school, when the blonde overhead an excited student telling her friend about this. These gossipers had then noticed Harmony listening to them, and both had nervously edged away from her.

That reaction had happen often over the last few days. No one knew exactly how to treat the girl who had slapped the, well, not the most popular girl in school, but clearly the most influential. Plus what had happened right after, when she had told off the detested principal.

It all came down for the residents of Sunnydale High being forced in performing the most loathed task for teenagers. Making a decision. While the students' opinion of Harmony's actions included amusement, glee, awe, and simple lust (that dress had been really tight across her chest when she had swung her arm), it didn't mean they were going to vote for the blonde as class president. Most of the school population had good reason to dislike Cordelia Chase, yet she was not certainly going to take what had happened lying down (even if she had been knocked on her ass), and her revenge was going to be terrible and probably directed against everybody who had been there to witness her humiliation, instead of just one girl.

It was decided by virtually every student in the school to back off and see what would happen. A betting pool promptly sprang up, with most of the money being laid on another catfight taking place between the pair. For some reason, a lot of students suddenly started carrying pocket cameras and video recorders around the school, despite the fact that Sunnydale High didn't have a camera club.

Harmony herself was nervous about the whole thing. She certainly wasn't going to apologize to Cordelia, yet as her mother had warned her, there could be serious repercussions over the event. Maybe even legal trouble. It had been assault after all, and while both adversaries were minors, the Chase family could afford the best lawyers in the country to make someone pay dearly over what had been done.

It all meant that Harmony's stomach was once again turning over for most of the day, expecting Cordelia, along with an entire law firm in tow, to appear out of thin air at any moment, with the brunette doing her best to destroy her opponent. At this exact second right now during the period change, there was no sign of that rich girl, and the random movement of students in the school corridors had caused the hallway Harmony was walking through to be completely deserted for a few moments.

Harmony stopped to take a sip of water from a drinking fountain in its alcove in the hallway, hoping it would settle her stomach. As she finished drinking and started to straighten up from her bent-over position, the classroom door next to the fountain opened up, with someone coming out, moving with a quick stride. Both of the occupants of the hallway turned their heads at the same instant, mildly curious to see who the other was.

Cordelia Chase and Harmony Kendall, now both stock still, stared at each other from barely more than an arm's length apart.

Harmony's first thought was to look at her enemy's face, where she had slapped her. Incredibly, there was no damage of any kind there; no swelling, bruising, or marking at all. However, as Harmony kept her eyes directed at Cordelia's cheek, that part of the brunette's body suddenly turned bright red, except for a splotch of makeup skillfully applied earlier. This imperfection, about the size of a person's palm, now revealed itself in severe contrast with the rest of the reddened skin of the girl's features.

Now shifting her gaze to the rest of Cordelia's face, Harmony became petrified by the rage present there, along with other body signs of the brunette's wrath. As noted, except for the makeup Harmony now knew concealed bruising, Cordelia's entire face was as red as a tomato, except for thinned lips that were pure white from the blood being driving out by the pressure on these lips. The cords of Cordelia's neck stood out, her blazing eyes closed to narrow slits, and her hands curved into claws with the most exquisite nail polish covering the tops of the talons.

Harmony did the only thing she could think of, at the very last second before Cordelia would have lunged towards her. The blonde's right hand shot up into the space before them, stopping at eye level, and held its palm and fingers straight out. Ready for another slap.

Cordelia jerked to a halt, her breath exhaling in a whistling screech of balked fury. Now within arm's reach of each other, Harmony looked deep into the eyes of her foe, and saw….hesitation. Indecision. Uncertainty. The brunette knew she now faced someone who could do serious damage to her, and would do it if pushed.

Harmony watched as Cordelia's face writhed in disappointed anger, its ugliness shocking on such beautiful features, and then the brunette backed up a step and spun around, stalking off with a stiff body that wanted to lay waste to everything in sight at that moment.

In the next instant, the corridor was crowded again with students on their way to their classes, all ignorant of the confrontation they had just missed, with Harmony just standing there and shaking in her shoes.

The effects of her meeting with Cordelia kept Harmony subdued all day, including her walk home with Xander after detention. It may have also contributed to her next actions.

At the edge of the concrete walkway to her house, Xander came to a stop, not sure of what to expect. Harmony, on the other hand, suddenly came out of her funk, and she continued walking up the path, her hand shooting out to grab Xander's own hand and pulling him along.

"Hey, what---," blurted Xander, who had no idea what was going on. Harmony didn't answer him, marching steadily with the boy being dragged after her, until both of them had stepped up to the porch.

Once they were out of sight of the street and sidewalk passers-by in the darkness of the porch, Harmony finally let go of Xander's hand, turning to him and taking a step forward to throw her arms around the boy and bringing her face to his to plant a robust kiss.

A disbelieving Xander Harris just stood there for a few seconds, unable to react. Part of this had to do with the girl's tongue in his mouth. Anything he might do could turn out to be a calamity, and he really, really, didn't want to do anything wrong. He was having an absolutely wonderful time, and he didn't want it to end. Gathering up his courage, Xander lifted his arms and tentatively put them around Harmony, ready to yank them back at once if she showed any sign of offense.

The only thing Harmony did was to tighten her arms harder around Xander and say, "Mmmmmmm," through her busy mouth, making Xander's own mouth vibrate.

The boy wasn't totally stupid; he followed up on this permission by tightening his own arms around the warm, firm body of the girl. Xander's brain promptly broke out the champagne, paper hats, and noisemakers, particularly after Harmony shifted her body closer to his and pressed a certain part of her anatomy against his chest. *So that's what they feel like.*

The porch light turned on.


	8. Chapter 8

A few moments later, Melody Kendall pulled open the front door and looked out. Two teenagers were at the opposite ends of the porch, both beet-red with embarrassment and avoiding her eyes. The woman calmly looked at them both, keeping herself under superhuman control to prevent howling with laughter, and she offhandedly said, "Hello, Harmony. Who's this?"

"Gllllrrrch---" choked Harmony, and then she cleared her throat and managed a more comprehensible statement. "Uh, mom, this is Xander Harris."

The woman put an expression of cool interest on her face, and glanced at the boy. The young man with the look of a deer caught in the headlights of a convoy of SUV's stuffed full of drunken hunters with unlimited ammunition appeared as if at any moment he would dive off the porch and sprint at top speed in any possible direction out of the reach of an outraged parent.

Melody had no pity at all for the young man. She performed an absolutely unforgivable act. She held out her hand.

Xander looked with horror at the woman's outstretched hand waiting for him to show his manners. On their own, his traitor feet shuffled his body closer to the front door where The Maternal Figure Whose Daughter Had Just Shoved Her Tongue Down His Throat was waiting for him to approach her. He was gonna die.

*Isn't he the sweetest thing.*

The older woman didn't let this thought show on her features, keeping only a benign expression as the young man gingerly shook her hand. Her face changed to puzzlement as Xander froze, still holding onto her hand, and then the boy started inhaling, pulling in such a deep breath through his nose that the woman looked down, expecting to see the teenager's shoes floating an inch off the porch floor from his buoyancy.

Melody looked up as Xander dreamily spoke, "Roast chicken, fresh biscuits, mashed potatoes, gravy…. aaaaaand apple pie just taken out of the oven."

She blinked, surprise in her voice as she confirmed the smells coming out of the front door of their home. "Yes, that's exactly right. That's dinner tonight. Would you like to join us?" Xander's hand dropped out of Melody's grasp in sheer shock.

"MOM!" This came at once from Harmony. It was difficult to tell if she meant this in disbelief, protest, or the usual teenage disagreement over anything coming out of their parent's mouth.

"What, Harmony?" blandly said Melody, looking at her daughter. "I thought that since he's here, you were bringing a guest. There's more than enough for all of us."

"Urk!" contributed Xander. The two women both looked at the boy as he furtively wiped away a trickle of saliva that had escaped from the corner of his mouth, just a fraction of the liquid that had flooded his mouth at first experiencing the delicious smells of a home-cooked dinner.

"Well, that's settled, then. Come in, Xander." Melody stepped aside, missing the worried look on the young man's face at her exact words that were far more dangerous than the woman knew, as she savored the panicked expression of her daughter realizing her mother was going to meet the boy in her own uncontested domain.

Some time later, Harmony was having seriously mixed feelings. Absently eating her tasty meal, she tried cataloguing everything to better make sense of the whole bizarre dining experience that was taking place.

Panic and worry: Was a total disaster gonna happen? She hadn't yet considered introducing Xander to her mother, dreading on how exactly her parent was going to react, and now her hand had been forced into having him meet her mom without Harmony carefully planning how things should go.

Awe and astonishment: The girl's fears had proved correct. During the dinner, her mother had conducted upon Xander a subtle interrogation about himself that had both infuriated and brought on grudging admiration about her mother's clever cross-examination. However, Harmony hadn't expected how well the boy deflected her mother's casual questions, but then, Xander had years of experience in dealing with authority figures at school and elsewhere meeting the boy's irreverence and cheekiness, without him getting further in trouble, or more likely totally escaping punishment by making them laugh.

Irritation and wonder: Whatever she had considered possible, it hadn't been this. Over the course of the meal, Xander had outrageously flattered her mother, causing her to receive his compliments with utter delight. Harmony had heard her mother laugh harder tonight than the girl could remember Melody Kendall doing for a very long time.

Absolute amazement: The guy could EAT. Throughout all of the conversation between Xander and her mother (Harmony had been mostly quiet during the meal), the boy had devoured half of the whole chicken, eight biscuits, almost the entire bowl of mashed potatoes, all of that drowned in gravy, and he had now finished off two enormous slices of apple pie. At this moment, he was quietly scraping his fork across his bare plate, hopefully searching for a minuscule crumb that had somehow escaped being consumed by an appetite on legs.

Harmony glanced at her mother. She was giving Xander a look of amused pride as the boy visibly refrained from licking his plate. Harmony had the sense that events were seriously out of her control, and she tried to not feel absolutely helpless.

As Xander put down his fork on his empty plate, he glanced at his watch, and yelped, "Oh, cripes!" Both women jerked in surprise, seeing Xander shoot to his feet from his chair at the table, and then the boy paused, as he came to a realization.

Xander took a step towards a startled Melody at her position at the head of the table, taking her free hand in a double handclasp, and he told her in a very serious voice that matched his face, "Mrs. Kendall, I'm really sorry for having to leave in a hurry, but I have to go now. This dinner was one of the best in my life, and I'll always remember it. It was great!" Xander now looked at Harmony across the table, and he hastily said, "Harmony, thanks for inviting me here and introducing me to your fantastic mom. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" At this, Xander went around the table and headed for the front door in a rush, leaving both women at the table with their mouths open.

"Xander, wait!" shrieked Harmony, jumping to her own feet, and in the process, giving her knee a sharp crack against one of the table legs, causing the entire table to shudder and forcing Melody to grab her water glass before it tipped over. Harmony paid no attention to this or to her throbbing knee, hurriedly hobbling to the front door. She caught up with Xander outside on the porch, where he was warily looking out in the darkened neighborhood.

As Xander turned to meet the girl, he said, "Harmony, I'm really sorry, but I have to go now, but I had a great---ummmm!" This last sound came as a set of warm lips pressed hard against his own and a girl's arms embraced him. This time, Xander was ready. He kissed back just as hard and he put his arms around Harmony in a firm hug. Both teens stood there for a few moments, lost in each other. The pair were currently in the state of mind where they didn't care the slightest that each other had acute gravy breath.

Xander finally pulled free, quite reluctantly, and urgently told the girl, "Harmony go back inside, and tell your mom again it was a really great dinner. Like I said, I'll see you tomorrow after detention, okay?" At that, Xander left a bemused girl behind on the porch, as he headed into the darkness, on guard, suspiciously peering around for unseen dangers.

Harmony obeyed Xander, going back inside and locking the door, not giving his orders and edginess any particular thought. This was Sunnydale after all, home of the most dangerous barbecue forks in the world.

As she came back into the dining room, Harmony noted the table was cleared and splashing sounds were coming from the kitchen. A call came from her mother there, "Harmony, would you help me clean up?"

Warily, Harmony entered the kitchen, only to be presented with a towel by her mother in an unspoken command to help dry the pots, pans, and plates the woman was washing in the sink. As she rubbed the towel over the kitchen things passed to her by her silent mother, the girl watched her parent out of the corner of her eye. Harmony nearly lost her grip on several plates, anxiously waiting for her mother to comment on something.

At last, Melody spoke, "Harmony…." The girl stiffened, preparing to be defensive about any criticism, disapproval, and condemnation of the son of Tony and Jessica Harris. "I asked around and then talked to Joyce Summers."

Harmony blinked. "Who?"

"Joyce Summers. She's the mother of your classmate Elizabeth."

Frowning, Harmony said, "I know some Elizabeths, but I can't remember anyone with the last name of Summers."

Her mother finished cleaning a dish and reached into the soapy water for another. "She called her daughter Buffy."

"Oh, her." For a one-syllable word, Harmony managed to put a wealth of dislike in her intonation of the pronoun.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye at Harmony, Melody wisely decided not to call out her daughter after seeing the sour-lemon expression on the girl's face. Instead, the woman just shook her head, and wondered, "How can anyone call their kid Buffy?"

"Excuse me, musical name here," dryly said Harmony.

Her hands deep in the sink's soapy water, Melody just rolled her eyes, and standing on tiptoes and leaning towards her daughter, the woman planted a kiss on Harmony's shoulder tip.

"Mom!" The protest of the young woman was interrupted by her going into a fit of the giggles.

Smiling, the mother concentrated on wiping a dinner plate, and she casually said, "Anyway, I talked to Joyce for a long time. She told me that Xander is a good friend of her daughter, and that he's a very nice boy. She trusts him."

There was a thoughtful silence in the kitchen for a few minutes as the two women finished doing the dishes. Harmony put away the plates in the cupboard, and then she approached the older woman wiping down the sink and kissed her mother on her temple, causing Melody to squeal, "Harmony!"

Laughing, the girl started to leave the kitchen, stopping and turning at her mother's voice. Melody said quietly, "Harmony, I think you should thank Eliz….Buffy….whoever…for what her mother told me."

Her face serious, Harmony nodded, and said, "I was going to do that anyway, and I'll also tell her I'm sorry for being….mean to her."

The older woman looked at her daughter with quiet pride and nodded. "You do that. Oh, Harmony…." The girl paused again on her way out to see her mother cleaning the kitchen counter without looking at her. "I've changed my mind. Your grounding ends this week, at Friday. You aren't grounded this weekend and next week."

Harmony stood frozen there, and then she gulped, "Thanks, Mom." She turned and left the kitchen in a rush.

Melody stopped wiping the counter, raising her head to listen to her daughter pound her way up the stairs of the small house at a dead run, and then the door to her bedroom opened and slammed shut, and next came the very faintest sounds of someone throwing their whole body onto their bed in a jump of sheer joy.

The woman in the kitchen had a slight smile on her face as tears ran down her cheeks. Her child had never done any of that in this house since they'd moved here, but Melody could remember Harmony as a small girl in their old house doing the exact same thing when bursting with happiness, when there was a child and a woman and a man living as a family.

"Oh, Jack," whispered Melody of her dead husband's name. "I wish you could see her growing up now."


	9. Chapter 9

On Thursday night, Xander had kissed her FIRST on the porch. A few blocks earlier on their walk to Harmony's home, she had put her hand in his and they had walked the rest of the way holding hands.

Friday afternoon arrived, at last. Harmony, her detention finally over, was practically skipping on her way out of the deserted school. Her good mood had lasted the entire day, of which she had spent that whole time plotting to get Xander to take her on a date this weekend, even if she had to kiss his lips off. She was willing to go anywhere.

Really anywhere!

Horror movie marathon? You bet.

Comic book convention? Okay.

Monster truck racing? Uh….sure.

And then after that…. Harmony came to a dead stop in the school corridor, her insides quivering in a way totally new and not unpleasant.

Despite school rumors and the proud boasts inscribed on the walls of the toilet stalls in the boys' restrooms at Sunnydale High, Harmony Kendall was a virgin. She had never let any male before Xander get further than second base, but she had been willing enough at that time to let those first dates think she had more experience than them, which hadn't been all that hard. Nor had she cared all that much about what had been claimed afterwards by those fumbling dolts. In her status-obsessed high school, having any kind of reputation, even a bad one, was better than being considered a total nonentity. Still, her innate sense and caution had kept things from going too far in actuality. A knee to the groin worked, also.

Frowning thoughtfully, Harmony thought the same applied to Xander, though just for lack of opportunity. He was a teenage boy, after all. As for whatever actual experience he may have had, she hadn't heard anything about him with any other girl in school or elsewhere, and judging from his demonstrated skill level in necking over the past week, he was probably on a par with her in sexual experience. She felt a frisson over finally saying that word to herself.

About Xander and more, um, physical stuff…. Harmony thought hard about this. He was capable of being as stupid as any other boy and he could make mistakes just as well as anybody, but….Harmony was quite sure of this as anything else in her life….Xander Harris would never, ever harm her.

So, if things….happened, and she said no, she knew the guy would respect her and he would stop. With great difficulty, but he would stop. Harmony hugged herself in delight, and whispered, "I….might just not say no." She enjoyed a full-body shiver at her naughtiness.

Smiling to herself, Harmony stepped outside the front doors of the school, expecting to see Xander sitting on the entrance railings, as he had done so the entire previous week. There was no sign of him.

A stab of fear appearing in her heart, Harmony spun around, frantically searching the entire area around her. She didn't see a lanky teenager with brown eyes, a Hawaiian shirt created by a color-blind designer, and an easy smile that made her kiss her pillow every night just before going to sleep. Outside the entrance to Sunnydale High, a sixteen-year-old girl stood motionless, her entire world coming crashing down in ultimate misery.

Stumbling away down the steps of the entrance, Harmony dully glanced to her left and right, checking the sides of the school, but not really expecting to see anyone there. Sure enough, the place was deserted, but there was a light shining through the windows of a particular area of the school. Harmony stared at this, as a thought made its way past the wretchedness in her brain. *That's where the library is, I think.*

Harmony froze, her mind exploding with hope. *Yeah, didn't you hear he spends part of his school time there, with the misfit group?*

The girl spun around, scampering back up the stairs and through the entrance to stop at the intersection of the school corridors. Heart beating rapidly, Harmony made a frantic decision on where to go, and she hurried down a selected corridor that she had never been before, though a sign with "LIBRARY" gave her encouraging directions.

At last, she came to the proper door. Holding her breath, Harmony cautiously opened the door a crack and peeked through the opening at the room beyond. It was brightly lit and filled with books neatly filed in bookshelves and other furnishings needed for a small school library. Harmony paid no attention to this, as what had really captured her interest was the large table in the center of the room.

At one end of this table, a man in his forties wearing a tweed suit was carefully going through a large, heavy book while a stack of other tomes rested by him. At the other end of the table, three students were sitting, all with their backs to Harmony. The middle student was holding upright another bulky tome before him, opened to the middle and concentrating on what he was reading. The other students on both sides of him were also engrossed in the book the boy was holding. The heads of these students, both girls, were nearly touching the head of the boy in the middle. Looking from left to right revealed hair colors of a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.

Deep inside Harmony's mind, something bared its fangs.

"XANDER!"

The entire group at the library table jerked their heads up to gape at the young woman standing in the now-open doorway to the library, the three students at the table twisting around to stare at the girl, who was herself staring at Xander with an intense expression that concealed a bubbling fury. The young man himself jumped straight up from his chair, causing the girls at his sides to simultaneously yelp as they were roughly jostled by his levitating body.

"Sorry, Harmony, sorry! The meeting ran overtime! I'll be going now! Bye, G-man, Willow, Buffy!"

Xander managed to say all this while making two enormous leaps towards the library door, only to come to a skidding halt as Harmony failed to get out of the way. Instead, the girl just stood there, giving the others in the room an unfathomable look.

"Ah, Harmony, we can leave now," jittered Xander, his hands making shooing gestures to get Harmony to go. Even in his current scatter-brained state of mind, he still knew better than to actually grab or tug on the girl to get her to hurry along.

*Oh, no, he isn't going to get off that easily.*

Harmony casually stepped around Xander, who now had on his face a look of doom, and she walked towards the library table, its former seated occupants now standing and staring at her in surprise. There, the young woman with the red hair now had a panicked look on her face as she realized someone who had been an enemy for years was approaching her. Then, Harmony said something that was really astonishing.

"Willow, I apologize for every mean, rotten, stupid, and nasty thing I said and did to you since I came here to Sunnydale. I'm really, really sorry. Will you please forgive me?"

"Ahhh…." Willow couldn't speak at once from sheer shock, instead shooting a disbelieving look at Buffy, who could only shrug, and then Willow glanced at Xander still standing by the library door. Willow's gaze sharpened when she saw how the boy was regarding Harmony with….pleasure?…. satisfaction?….pride?!

Willow brought back her gaze to Harmony, who was standing before her with a beseeching expression on the blond girl's face. *She actually means it,* realized the redhead, feeling a bit dizzy. *Did Xander have something to do with this?* Without thinking, Willow blurted out, "I forgive you, Harmony. Yeep!"

The last comment came from being gathered in a quick and forceful hug by the bigger girl. Willow cautiously hugged Harmony back, feeling for the first time her body in close contact with another girl her age. *This feels strange, not bad strange --- whyamIthinkingthisohmyGodwhat'swrongwithme ---* Harmony had to tug back to break Willow's hold, giving her a curious look at the redhead's sudden blank expression as that girl began a record mental babble.

Buffy had been dazedly watching this. Now, as Harmony then turned to the other blonde, Buffy took a step back, bumping against the library table. The Slayer's mystical senses were turned to "High" and directed totally at the other girl. *This has got to be some kind of trick by the bad guys. A pretty imaginative one, too.*

Observing Buffy's wary expression, Harmony took a step forward and started to hold out her hand, until she hesitated, and said, "Uh, do I call you Elizabeth or Buffy?"

"What?" blinked the smaller girl as she looked up at Harmony. "Oh, that, the kids in my preschool group couldn't pronounce Elizabeth, so they called me Buffy. Now everybody does, so….yeah, I'm Buffy."

"Thank you, Buffy." Harmony took a deep breath, and stuck out her hand. Buffy could see it tremble a little, as the other girl continued, "I didn't hurt you as much as I did with Willow, but that was only because I was around her longer. I said and did bad things to you, and I'm really sorry for it. Will you please forgive me?"

One surprising consequence of the Slayer senses was that Buffy was capable of telling ninety-plus percent of the time when normal humans were lying to her. Right now, Buffy knew Harmony was speaking the truth about her feelings. *Of course, she could be under a spell, being mind controlled, a clone, a robot, from the future, or….or….none of these. Oh, crap. She really means it. You wanted normal life, girl, this is part of it.*

Buffy looked down at Harmony's outstretched hand and took it in a firm grip (*not too hard, now*) to accept her apology. This caused the Slayer to miss Xander's ear-to-ear grin as the boy watched all this. Looking back later, the teenager would wince at how life could set him up like pins in a bowling alley just before the place was hit by a hundred thousand-ton meteor strike.

Buffy let go of Harmony's hand, looking up curiously at the taller girl as she remained close to Buffy rather than backing off. Suddenly, the Slayer had an overpowering sense of the wiggins as Harmony's expression changed to an intent look directly at Buffy. To the smaller girl's surprise, her internal warning didn't seem to have anything to do with her Slaying job; rather, it was deeper than that, concerning her gender. Buffy sensed the two of them were about to go mano-a-mano. Um….make that mujer-a-mujer.

Harmony casually took a deep breath and leaned towards Buffy. Just to keep things private, of course. Why would anyone think Harmony was flaunting her bigger chest and her greater seven inches in height over the diminutive blonde?

"Buffy," said Harmony in a polite tone. "Please thank your mother from me for talking to my mom about Xander. I already knew he was a good guy when he walked me home after detention all this week, and my mom found out this too, when he was over to dinner this Wednesday. He really, really is a nice boy." At this, Harmony reached out and patted Buffy on her shoulder.

For various foul creatures of the night with harmful intentions in these monster's minds, getting this close to the Slayer usually resulted in pulling back a bloody stump. Numbly, Buffy watched Harmony turn and walk away, with a twinge of regret that she couldn't do that to this girl.

As the tall blonde went past Xander, her hand shot out to grab him by his arm and drag the teen with her out of the library. The last Buffy saw of Xander, shambling by Harmony's side, his head was turned over his shoulder, giving the two girls in the library his most sickly grin.

Buffy slowly turned her head to stare at Willow, seeing the redheaded girl had the dazed look of someone who'd just been hit by a carnival ring-the-bell mallet, right between the eyes. The Slayer was quite sure an identical expression was on her own face. Both blurted out, "Did you….? No!"

This was no time for a "jinx!"

Willow stammered, "I….I thought he was patrolling with you this week!"

Buffy stared. "He was, but he always joined me late! I thought he was studying with you!"

The two girls gawked at each other, until they simultaneously narrowed their eyes, both now in a fell mood.

"He never said a word, the little sneak," growled Buffy.

Willow's face matched Buffy's in its grimness, and then the Sunnydale native's features collapsed nearly in tears. "Why did it have to be Harmony, of all people?" wailed Willow.

"Um…." said Buffy uneasily. "It could be worse, he could actually be with Cor---"

"DON'T SAY THAT NAME!" shrieked Willow.

"Calm, Willow, calm," entreated Buffy, as she worriedly watched Willow struggle to regain her breath. The Slayer suddenly looked puzzled, as a question came into her mind.

"Giles, did you know anything about this?"

There was not a word from the British librarian.

Both girls turned to look around to find the library totally empty except for themselves.

Buffy mentally replayed sounds she'd paid no attention to a few minutes ago: books being quietly put away, someone who knew exactly how sensitive Slayer hearing was tiptoeing softly to the emergency exit, the door being held to shut as gently as possible, trying to run silently to the teachers' parking lot, the cautious driving habits of a lifetime frantically jettisoned as a foot smashed down on the accelerator of his car, and a classic auto peeling rubber for the first time in its existence away from the school.

"COWARD!"

The library windows actually rattled as both girls bellowed their opinion of Rupert Giles.


	10. Chapter 10

"You're evil, Harmony."

The girl didn't turn her head to look at Xander, instead concentrating on walking on the sidewalk in the gloom. The time she'd spent back in the school, along with the shortening days of autumn, meant that it was now fully dark. This helped hide her calm expression as she merely answered, "Oh?"

Xander was slouching alongside Harmony. "Yeah. You know full well that back there on Monday morning, in front of everyone, Buffy and Willow are gonna imitate taxidermists and gut me, skin me, stuff me, and mount me. The last, not in a good way."

"You didn't tell them before what you were doing, did you?"

"I….thought about it. I don't think there's anythi--- much, that I haven't told Willow, ever. But, now, you and me….It was private. Just, uh, stuff in my life just for me."

Harmony wasn't walking anymore, she was floating over the ground after translating in her head what the teenage boy had tried to convey. *Yeah, the big idiot would act like that, and I want to spend the next half hour kissing him for it.* She looked at Xander out of the corner of her eye, seeing the troubled expression on his face as he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing. *Oh, he's the cutest thing ever, and I'm so not gonna tell him that. For now, anyway.*

Instead, Harmony brightly asked, totally out of the blue, "What were you doing in the library anyway, Xander? I thought you weren't big on school."

"Oh, uh," started Xander, both relieved and sorry about the change in the conversation, but willing to give the excuse he'd thought up before about this. "A while back, to get my grades up, I volunteered for school stuff. They call it extra-credit work. I thought maybe I'd help out in shop, or work on the ball fields, that kind of thing. But, uh, they sent me to the library. I do stuff like stacking books, carrying things, looking up stuff in the books, whatever Giles wants me to do."

"What about Willow and, uh, Buffy? Are they there for extra credit, too?"

"Buffy, yeah, she got assigned there, too. She helps around, like me." Xander silently prayed that the small blonde would never hear about what he'd said, otherwise a certain Slayer would pound him into paste. Shivering at this, the teen continued, "Willow's a big brain. She likes being there, and she volunteered to help Giles out in his work."

"Being a librarian?" frowned Harmony. "Like Batgirl?"

"What?" Xander blinked, and then he grinned as he remembered the '60's television show with Adam West, Burt Ward, and Yvonne Craig in the tight, tight Batgirl costume with the red wig. "Yeah, she was a librarian in her civilian identity, wasn't she? Looked pretty---"

Xander suddenly remembered Number 254g on the Male Commandments List ("Thou shalt not use the words 'babe', 'hot', 'stacked', or the like to describe any female in the hearing of any other female in your presence not currently being addressed by these words and capable of giving you a good shot in the chops.") and hastily shut his mouth.

Harmony coolly gazed at Xander's desperately hopeful expression that he had averted disaster at the last possible moment, while reviewing in her mind Number 999z ("Women know every rule, you poor bastard."). She struck while the iron was hot. "Are Willow and Buffy just your friends, or more?"

Xander boggled at this, wondering what brought it on, but he answered honestly anyway. "No, Willow's just been my bestest bud, like, forever. Since kindergarten. I met Buffy last year on her first day at school here." He tried not to think how much of a doofus he had acted on that day, skateboarding and catching sight of a truly fine girl and colliding with a railing, and then having his mouth run away from him and asking Buffy, "Can I have you?"

Knowing he risked girlfriend catastrophe, Xander cautiously went on. "I, uh, thought I had a chance with Buffy, but, well, she prefers older guys." The teenager viciously kicked a rock on the sidewalk, sending it skipping out in the street ahead of them, and muttered under his breath, "Really, really older guys who are totally obsessed with their hair and who could easily win the 100-meter Olympic brooding dash. From a standing start. With a ball and chain attached." Xander stumbled, having just realized what he'd thought. *Girlfriend. I called her girlfriend. Wow. Uh, does she think so, too?*

Baffled by Xander's last remarks, Harmony shot a puzzled glance at him, only to see a dazed look on his face as he walked along. She shrugged, willing enough to disregard this to concentrate on his earlier comments. *Okay, Buffy's out of the game. Willow, you have to get her on your side. She probably knows everything about him. You made a good start, now begin making her your friend.* Harmony nodded to herself, and began plotting.

The two teenagers walked down the sidewalk, both lost in their thoughts and not paying attention to their surroundings. A state of mind that was extremely dangerous in the town of Sunnydale at night.

At a particularly dark part of the block they were walking through, two men suddenly loomed up on both sides of the teenagers, causing them to stop short with beating hearts. The man at Xander's side, a thirty-year-old white guy in a faded blue t-shirt and jeans with boots, cocked his head towards the boy and said, "Hey, Sam, they sound nice and fresh. Hearts are in good shape and they don't smoke. Dee-lish!"

The other man by the girl, another white guy a few years older and dressed more formally in a button-up shirt and dress pants, leered at Harmony, growling, "Before we eat, I want to have some fun, Frank!"

Grinning at the frightened couple, both men's faces….changed, rippling into inhuman countenances that included fangs and glowing yellow eyes.

"RUN, HARMONY!" yelled Xander, making a lunge towards the guy menacing her. The girl didn't move, totally frozen in fright at what was standing before her.

The guy Xander rushed at moved faster than Harmony thought humanly possible, knocking aside the boy's pathetic left hook, and then grabbing Xander's left shoulder, while turning his head to sneer at his partner, "Oh, we got a real hero here, Fr---"

To Harmony's disbelieving eyes, her potential rapist/killer holding her boyfriend helpless suddenly…. dissolved. His human body with a monster's face changed from solid muscle into dust that momentarily maintained its bodily form, and then fell soundlessly to the ground.

The girl stared at Xander, his body frozen in a thrust, holding before him a pointed wooden stake in his right hand, that had slid out of the sleeve of his flannel shirt when he had thrown his decoy punch, to be rammed into the man's chest. Xander then began to turn towards the other man, but the boy was much too slow.

"BASTARD!" bellowed the remaining monster, leaping forward with blinding speed to grab Xander's upper right arm around the boy's biceps, and making a single twist of his hand. Xander screamed, and his arm spasmed, tossing away his stake, as everyone there heard a dull crack! as the teenager's arm was broken.

The thing that looked like a man then grabbed Xander's throat with this right hand and pulled him close. Despite this, the teen managed to choke out, "Harmony, run!"

Yellow eyes flicked towards the petrified girl, and then its lips pulled back in a horrific grin, showing all its fangs, as Harmony slumped down to her knees on the ground as her legs gave way. The monster directed its attention back to the boy in its grasp, who was fruitlessly trying to struggle, and snarled into Xander's face, "She's not going anywhere, punk! After I've drained you, me and her are gonna have a LOT of fun!" Xander convulsed, as the monster's grip tightened savagely around his throat.

Kneeling on the ground, Harmony could only drop her eyes to prevent seeing her boyfriend murdered. Dully staring at the street beyond her, the girl's mind began to shut down in acceptance of her fate.

A last flicker of attention made her see something in the road.

It was….a rock.

The rock that Xander had kicked just a few seconds ago.

A rock that was a rough sphere, about the size of a baseball.

A….baseball.

Within arm's reach.

Before coming to Sunnydale, the young girl known as Harmony Kendall had been a tomboy, happily playing with the other boys in her old neighborhood, her strong body not yet growing curves. During that time, Harmony had easily learned how to throw a baseball like a boy, and she had won the guys' respect over how hard she could throw it. Often, any boy making a catch from Harmony would yelp in mingled pain and respect at their stinging hands after the high-speed baseball had smacked into their gloves.

All that had ended when her father had died and she and her mother had moved to Sunnydale. Besides those upheavals in her life, Harmony also had to deal with her changing body, that to her disbelieving eyes, basically exploded up and out. Her depression and other feelings of misery over all that resulted in her not trying out for athletics in school, but in burying herself in girly stuff, in an attempt to make herself feel better. One consequence of this had been joining the Cordettes and subsuming her personality to Cordelia's domination, in a desperate attempt to be part of something. To….belong.

*Xander.*

*Boyfriend.*

*Xander….belongs….

TO….

MEEEEE!*

Harmony lunged forward, her right hand darting towards the rock, snatching it up and with a twist of her hand, spinning it to a more comfortable position in her palm. All this while jumping to her feet, and then her body was moving in the old, familiar positions. Head steady, locked at target. Torso straight up perpendicular from the ground. Left leg straight down, foot flat on ground, right leg a step back, just toes and ball of foot touching ground for balance. Twisting upper torso back with left arm in front of body, to balance the right arm going back and down for the rock in the right hand to touch the back of her right thigh.

A breath huffed from Harmony, as her right arm blurred in a full overarm throw that used every single muscle in her arms, torso, and legs in a paroxysm of effort that included her fear and horror, all expressed in changing her exhalation into a shriek of pure rage as the rock left her hand.

It was a totally perfect throw. Except for one thing.

Harmony hadn't thrown a baseball for years. In that time, while biology had changed her outward form into something that matched her gender, or as the high-school jocks expressed it with the phrase "built like a brick outhouse," she had also added quite a bit of pure muscle since her adolescence. That, combined with the adrenaline of a life-or-death situation, meant her delivery of the rock reached nearly pro baseball speeds.

A radar gun would have read the rock as traveling over eighty miles an hour.

Even a vampire, distracted from the last moment just before sinking its fangs into Xander's neck, to glance up at Harmony's scream, and putting its face right in the path of the rock, wasn't fast enough to dodge this.

The rock hit the monster directly in its left eye, destroying that organ and shattering the bones in the eye-socket.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" screamed the vampire, letting go of its victim to grab its face and stagger back a few steps.

Xander, now released from his stranglehold, barely able to breath and in his own agony from his broken arm, stood on quivering legs, and he knew they had only seconds before the vampire began to recover and killed them both. His right arm limp against his side, Xander lurched forward, shaking his left arm to slide out his spare stake up his sleeve and barely caught that weapon as it came down into his left palm.

Harmony was standing in the street and clutching her chest, with that part of her body sharply reminding her there was a reason for sports bras. She ignored this, watching in terror as Xander stumbled towards the monster holding its face, with the boy's left arm thrusting his stake into the thing's chest. A split second later, a savage backhand from the vampire threw the teen up and back in a curve through the air that ended in a sodden thump as Xander hit the ground on his back ten feet away from the demon.

Now barely conscious, the Scooby Gang member stared with horror at his stake protruding from the chest of the still-standing vampire. It hadn't penetrated far enough to dust the demon, and only the greater agony of its destroyed eye from which the vampire was still suffering made it ignore the piece of wood sticking out of it. Xander weakly turned his head to find Harmony, and he croaked out to her, "Harmony, push that stake in it, now!" He knew there wasn't enough time for her to run to safety before the vampire recovered and chased her down.

"I….I….what?!" babbled Harmony, not believing her ears. Move closer to THAT?

Xander stared at the terrified girl, and he did the only thing he could think of. Pushing with his sole working arm, he tried to get back up to his feet, to go up against the vampire, hoping the few seconds it spent killing him meant Harmony could escape.

He suddenly found Harmony besides him, her hands grabbing him under his shoulders to help him get up and away.

"No! No time! Leave me! RUN!" gasped Xander, as pain exploded in his head from the girl's handling. It wasn't enough distraction to avoid seeing the vampire put its hands down from its face to glare one-eyed at the pair of teens.

"YYYYYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" screamed Harmony as she let go of him and jumped over Xander's body collapsing to the ground, to rush directly at the vampire, who screamed back and lunged forward, its outstretched arms having its claws ready and its eager fangs about to tear her flesh. The stake still in its chest bobbled as the vampire prepared to end Harmony Kendall's life.

The girl ran right into the vampire's clutches, its arms coming together to rend her into pieces. The points of its talons were a fraction of an inch above her skin….and then they turned into dust.

Harmony was unable to stop, her arms still pointing forward for her hands to push inward a now-destroyed stake, and she ran right through the dust cloud that had been her death less than a second ago. The girl skidded to a stop, coughing convulsively to clear her throat and lungs, and then her entire body began to shake as she realized she was still alive.

"Uhhh….uhhhh….uhhhh," gasped/sobbed Harmony, for how long she never knew, until she finally responded to her name being repeatedly called. She turned around to see Xander close his mouth and start writhing on the ground.

"XANDER!" screamed the girl, and she rushed to him, kneeling down beside him, but holding her hands helplessly, not knowing how to aid the boy.

His face paper-white, Xander blearily looked up at Harmony's tear-streaked face and croaked, "Get help, house….call cops, ambulence….don't tell cops wha' happened. Tell 'em we got mugged, nothin' else. When you can, call Buff--- Buffy, Willow, Giles. They'll know….what to do." Xander's eyes closed as Harmony sobbed, and then he opened them again to look at the girl.

He smiled. "You done good, Harm."

Then, Xander Harris passed out.


	11. Chapter 11

A minute later, Harmony learned that continuously ringing the doorbell of a house, screaming at the top of her lungs, and pounding and kicking the front door was not something that would bring out a wary householder into the Sunnydale night.

A twenty-pound flowerpot full of geraniums hurled through the front picture window of a living room, with a crash of doom that resounded throughout the entire neighborhood, would do it, though.

Eventually, Harmony was sitting in the back of a police car parked on the street, trembling and flinching at anything moving in her sightline, and attempting to tell her story to the expressionless police officer in the front seat taking down in his notebook her words. Given that Barney Fife would have been considered a top-of-the-line law enforcement employee in Sunnydale, this cop didn't bat an eye at the fact that the girl had just given three different descriptions of the muggers while babbling.

The ambulance carrying Xander had left for the hospital a few minutes ago, and the neighbors had gone back into their houses, leaving the street clear except for the police car, Harmony, her interviewer, and his partner, who has writing an insurance claim sheet for the owner of the house and the window that the girl had destroyed. This cop handed over the sheet of paper to the householder, suggested he spend the remainder of the night at a motel until the window was repaired, and turned to walk towards the police car, looking warily around on the way.

Reaching the police car, this cop bent down by the side window to look at the shivering girl. Older than his partner, with a kind face and weary eyes, the policeman rumbled, "She given her story, Fred?"

"Yeah," absently said the cop in the car, staring at a page in his notebook. "Say, how do you spell conscious, anyway?"

Rolling his eyes at Harmony and getting a fleeting smile from the girl, the senior partner recited, "C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S. Okay, ma'am, we'll take you to the hospital to get checked out and for you to see how's your boyfriend. You can call your family there."

Harmony jerkily nodded her head, catching out of the corner of her eye something that made her go pale. The cop outside the police car was standing exactly on the dustpile created by the first monster Xander had killed. Harmonly leaned back in the car seat, looking straight ahead, missing the fact that the older cop had glanced down at the ground. That man's features tightened, and he casually scraped his shoes back and forth through the remains several times. The experienced Sunnydale cop then went around the car to get in the passenger seat, his face set in a grim expression.

The police car's drive to the hospital was quiet, with no lights or siren, and also silence among the passengers, save for a few comments that Harmony found odd. These remarks came from the older cop, with his partner keeping his mouth shut as he drove and listened. "Say, ma'am, I saw your boyfriend's name on the report. He really Alexander LaVelle Harris?"

Startled at learning Xander's middle name for the first time, Harmony blinked and asked, "Uh, yeah. Do you know him?"

"I've seen him around," answered the cop, keeping his face deadpan, but turning to look directly at Harmony through the protective grille shielding the rear seat. The cop held Harmony's gaze steady for a few moments, before gruffly adding, "He's a really good guy." At that, the policeman turned around to stare out the windshield at the Sunnydale night, leaving Harmony very confused now.

At the hospital, Harmony left the police car to walk into an efficient bustle that swept her up. She was told that Xander was being treated for his broken arm and other body damages and couldn't be seen now, but that he was expected to recover. The girl was asked if she had any injuries that needed to be treated, and at her negative answer, she was shown a building phone for her to call home.

Harmony managed to get through her phone call to Melody Kendall without breaking down, despite her mother's nearly going to pieces on what had almost happened to her child. Only a quick recital of an attack by muggers could be made in such a public place by the unharmed girl. The older woman vowed to join her daughter as soon as possible and Melody hastily hung up the phone in their house, barely keeping back her hysterics, as she grabbed her purse and car keys.

Sitting down in a chair next to the phone, Harmony put the receiver back on the hook, and just shivered for a few minutes. Suddenly realizing something, the girl grabbed the phone again and asked for information. A name was recited by the blonde girl, and a phone in the suburban home of 1630 Revello started ringing.

Buffy Summers had just shut the back door and was a few steps away from the house while beginning her usual patrol, until she heard the kitchen phone ringing through the walls, and said a few unladylike words. The Slayer hesitated, considering ignoring the phone, until she changed her mind and went back to the house. Her mother had gone to Los Angeles for a few days on business concerning her art shop, so she might be calling and become worried at nobody answering the phone at their house at this time of the night. In the kitchen, Buffy shifted her weapons hidden in her jacket as she picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Bu….Buffy, is that you?" said a scared voice. The named girl's eyebrows rose as she recognized who was calling and how the other girl on the phone sounded.

"Yeah….Harmony?! Why are you…."

"Xander's been hurt! We were attacked on the street by….by….something, and he fought them off! He's here in the hospital, but they say he's gonna get better!"

Buffy's blood froze at this terrified babbling by someone she disliked, but she forced down her panic, to get more information. "How bad is Xander, Harmony?"

"Uh, he has a broken arm" (Buffy heard Harmony give a sick swallow) "that I heard happen, and lots of other cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and maybe a concussion, and his throat was nearly crushed." At this, the Slayer heard a sob from the other girl. Buffy nearly shattered the phone she was holding in her savage grip.

"Harmony, stay there in the hospital. DON'T go outside. I'll call---"

The Slayer was interrupted by Harmony then. "Buffy, at the end, Xander told me to call you and Willow, and, uh, Gilbert or somebody, that you'd know what to do. A….about what….what really happened."

Buffy closed her eyes, not wanting any part of the future conversation and its potential scope.

There was a whisper from the phone. "Buffy, he saved me."

A pained smile appeared on Buffy's face, as tears trickled down her cheeks. Her own voice had a sniffle in it, as she replied to Harmony. "He does that for blondes a lot, Harmony."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," said Buffy in a steadier voice. "Look, I'll call Willow and Giles and have them meet me there. Remember, stay there. Do you want me to call anyone else?"

"No, I called my mom, she's coming over."

Buffy grimaced at this, but she had to allow there was no way to prevent another person from learning what really happened in the night at Sunnydale.

"Okay, I'll see you there with the others." Buffy gently put down the phone on the hook, despite wanting to destroy everything in reach, and she tapped out two phone numbers that were as familiar to her as her birthdate. A few seconds of horrified conversation and agreement lead to Giles on his way to Willow's house in his car to pick her up and then both going to the hospital.

The Slayer stalked out of her house, her face showing a berserker rage that meant any vampire or demon she encountered on her way to the hospital would be killed on the spot. She wasn't in the mood for any banter or witty repartee at the moment.

Several minutes later, Buffy soundlessly landed on her feet after making an effortless hop over the chain-link fence surrounding the hospital parking lot behind the building. She impatiently looked around, and then she saw Giles' car pull up, and the girl started loping towards the Watcher's vehicle.

The car screeched to a halt into a parking space, and both car doors were flung open, with two people jumping out. Willow caught sight of Buffy coming towards them, and she ran towards the blonde. Her face had a panicked look as the redhead babbled:

"What'swrongwithXanderI'mgonnakillhimhe'snotsupposedtodothis…"

Buffy grabbed Willow by her upper arms and gently shook the other girl a few times. "Willow, breathe! Let's go in and find out."

Willow drew in a shuddering breath and nodded, tears in her eyes. Giles came up besides her, a worried look on his face and polishing away like crazy on his glasses. They headed towards the hospital rear entrance, all of them grimly familiar with the place, usually on account of a certain young man not dodging in time an attack from a vicious creature of the night.

Just as the trio was about to go through the entrance, Buffy, who was in the center of the group, froze and shot out her arms horizontally at waist level on both sides, in a definite command for the others to stop. As startled as this as the halted pair at her sides were, they were even more surprised by Buffy snarling, "Shit!"


	12. Chapter 12

Several minutes before, inside the hospital, Harmon caught sight of her mother rushing through the main doors, a look of sheer terror on her face. The older woman wildly lookd around, and then seeing her daughter standing in the hospital waiting room off the main entrance, Melody Kendall ran directly at Harmony. The two women crashed together in a fierce embrace, the girl hearing her mother sobbing, "Baby, baby, baby…." as Melody tremblingly stroked her daughter's face and hair.

Right after that, Harmony had to grab and hold onto her mother as the woman's face turned pale and her legs buckled. The girl was strong enough to shift her mother to the closest chairs for them both to sit together, still in each other's arms.

Melody swallowed, and finally asked, "Harmony, are you all right? What happened?!"

Harmony looked at her mother, and slowly said, "Mommy, what I'm going to tell you is what really happened. I swear, I'm not making anything up to get out of trouble. I wish I was, because that would help me sleep tonight."

Melody looked bewildered at her child's declaration, and listened closely as Harmony began, "I left school after detention today and…."

Outside by the rear hospital entrance, Buffy was having a snit fit, stomping around and kicking the ground hard enough to gouge up chunks of asphalt. Stopping to glare at both Giles and Willow, the blonde growled, "I can hear Harmony in there, talking to her mom, and she's telling her everything!"

Giles opened his mouth, only to be interrupted before he could say anything by Buffy's upraised hand, as the Slayer tilted her head to concentrate on listening. She started a running commentary on what was being said inside the hospital.

"Two vamps….took them by surprise, dammit, he should have known better!….hah, the decoy left punch and the right hand stake, one vamp down, not bad….shit, the other vamp got Xander….yuch, broken arm….he told Harmony to run!….she froze, can't blame her….WHAT!!….a rock right in the eye!" At this, Buffy grabbed herself in a happy hug, and danced around in joy. She soon settled down and started talking again.

"Damn, Xander went after the other vamp….oh, crap, not hard enough….ow, that had to hurt….Harmony tried to get him out of there, good girl….SHE WHAT?!!!"

Buffy froze, gaping at the blank wall of the hospital's rear side, as if she could see through it and watch a girl who had done the unbelievable. Her head turned to stare at the other members of the Scooby Gang, an incredulous expression on her face. "Harmony….she ran right at a pissed vamp coming towards her and Xander, and she managed to dust it with the stake sticking out of it, just before it would have torn her apart."

Both Giles and Willow had identical disbelieving expressions on their faces.

"Buffy, that's virtually impossible," said the British librarian, awe in his voice. "I don't think in all of the Watcher records that it's happened more than several times in the past thousand years for a normal, inexperienced human meeting a vampire for the first time to destroy it."

The redheaded girl wiped tears away from her eyes, with Willow saying in a trembling voice, "Buffy, you said Harmony told you Xander saved her. I think they saved each other."

The Slayer slowly nodded, and then she looked at the rear entrance. "C'mon, let's see how Xander's feeling now."

The trio moved forward, with Willow now voicing their concerns. "Buffy, just what're we gonna do if Harmony and, uh, her mom want to know things?"

"We'll just have to wing it."

After walking through the hospital, the Slayer and her friends came to the main waiting room at the front, seeing the Kendalls at once. The mother and the daughter were still hugging each other, making Buffy feel totally guilty. It was her job to make sure that the Hellmouth was kept from hurting anybody! Now, an innocent girl was alive only because of her own courage and also the bravery of another normal human.

Buffy noticed Harmony become aware of the arrival of the Scooby Gang, and the seated blonde whispered into her mother's ear, with the older woman turning her head to stare curiously at the trio. As the two groups met, Harmony and Melody got up out of their chairs and polite introductions were made among everyone. That was as good as it got, as there was an immediate awkward silence, with nobody wanting to starting talking about things that needed serious explaining.

Fortunately, at that moment, a tired doctor came into the waiting room, and looking around, he walked towards the quiet group. He inquired, "Is this the family of Alexander Harris?"

With Giles closest to the doctor, it was the Englishman who answered the question. "No, we're his friends. There's no family member…." Giles was suddenly interrupted by someone else declaring the unimaginable.

"He's my boyfriend."

Buffy, Willow, and Giles all looked with shock at Harmony, who was not paying them any attention. Only one person's opinion mattered to the girl at this moment.

Melody stood by her daughter and put her arm around the girl, looking at the doctor and firmly nodding. "Yes, Xander Harris is my daughter's boyfriend." Harmony, with tears in her eyes, leaned her head over to rest it against her mother's head.

Gaping at the two women, the Scooby Gang missed the doctor's accepting shrug, until their attention was drawn back to him at his cleared throat. "Well, then, Mr. Harris' injuries are not potentially life-threatening. He has," the doctor looked at the notes he was carrying, "a broken upper right arm that's been put in a cast."

The doctor went on, carefully not mentioning the impressions of fingers on the teenager's flesh at the point of fracture. "There are no other broken bones or internal injuries, though he has serious contusions and bruising down to the bone over most of his body. After checking, there's no sign of a concussion, though we'll be keeping an eye on that. The most serious injury is to his neck, where it was crushed, producing tissue damage. There'll be severe swelling around his bruises there, with the possibility of his airway becoming constricted. To prevent that, we intubated him, that is, we put an oxygen tube down his mouth into his lungs. He'll have to stay here at least another forty-eight hours for observation. After that, if there are no complications, he can go home, though he will need care."

"Thank you, doctor," spoke Giles, the relief in his voice shared with every person there because of Xander. "Er, can we see him?"

The doctor nodded, gesturing at the nurses' counter. "They'll direct you to your friend's room, though he may be asleep right now from his painkillers." The doctor then left the group, all of them trying to contain their happiness from the good news.

Buffy looked at Willow. "Wils, can Xander stay with you?"

The redhead ruefully shook her head. "For once, my parents are coming back here tomorrow from their medical conferences. I don't think they want a real live patient in their home."

"Okay, I'll call mom later tonight, and ask her if he can stay with us."

Melody now had to join in, her voice totally confused. "Why can't Xander stay at his home?"

There was a dead silence among the Scoobies, with most of them guiltily not meeting the woman's gaze. Mrs. Kendall's own expression shifted into awareness, and then anger.

Harmony hopefully spoke, "Mom---"

Melody firmly interrupted her daughter. "He'll stay with us, as long as he wants."

"MOM!" shrieked Harmony with joy, flinging her arms around her mother.

The woman nearly being smothered by her daughter's enthusiastic hug just smiled faintly at the startled expressions of the other two girls and the older man. This latter individual cleared his throat, and politely murmured, "Mrs. Kendall, there is no need for you to take Xander into your home."

Gently untangling herself from her daughter, Melody stepped forward to stand in front of Rupert Giles and gave him a look that chilled Ripper's bones. "Mr. Giles, I don't need to. I want to. I owe Xander Harris my child's life, and I'll do anything to repay him for that."


	13. Chapter 13

Leaving a stunned Scooby Gang behind them, Melody and Harmony headed towards the nurses' counter and asked to see Xander. Buffy, Willow, and Giles joined the two women at the counter just in time for the nurse there to say the pair could see the boy for a few minutes, while the other trio had to wait for their turn. Seconding the doctor's comments, the nurse also warned everyone that Xander was in serious discomfort and on very strong pain-relieving drugs, and he could fall asleep at any time during their visit.

The mother and her child headed towards Xander's room, leaving behind them a very bemused group. As they went further into the hospital, the hands of the two women joined unconsciously, and their grips tightened until they became aware of it.

Both of them looked at each other, remembering the last time they had visited a hospital and the sorrow that had come with it. Harmony and Melody paused in the hospital corridor and gave each other a strong hug. "He'll be all right, honey," whispered Melody into her daughter's ear.

Ending their embrace, Harmony stepped back and wiped away tears from her eyes, nodding. "Yeah, I know that, and I won't go into pieces there." They started down the corridor, again holding hands, but this time for comfort instead of fear.

At last, Harmony announced at the door of a hospital room, "This is it, mom." She hesitated, turning to her mother. "Uh, are we supposed to knock?"

Melody faintly smiled, and said kindly, "Yes, once to announce us, and then just go right in."

Harmony did so, and then she cautiously pushed open the door. The two women entered the room, with its single bed having an occupant. Both stepped to the foot of the bed, with the pair simultaneously drawing in a dismayed gasp.

Xander Harris, flat on his back in the hospital bed and with his eyes closed, did not react. He was in no shape to do so.

His right arm was in a large cast, lying on top of the bed sheets. The rest of his exposed body had nearly contiuous bruising and swelling over his skin. The worst was his throat. It was nearly black and swollen to match the width of his head. The lower part of Xander's face was covered by a strapped-on mask that had tubes protruding from it, these leading to an oxygen tank next to the bed.

Harmony clutched her mother, and buried her face in her parent's shoulder, with the girl's body beginning to shake. Melody turned to hold her daughter in her arms, her left hand coming up to stroke the back of her child's head. As the two stood together, both heard at the same time a noise coming from the bed.

"Haaaahh….hhhaaarrrr…."

The women standing at the foot of the bed instantly turned their heads to stare at the bed's occupant. The teenage boy there now had his eyes open, and he was looking at his visitors, unable to say anything comprehensible due to the oxygen tube running down his throat.

"Xander!" gasped Harmony, swiftly breaking free of her mother to rush to Xander's left side on the bed. She hovered over him, her hands about to touch him, yet realizing there was virtually no place she could do so without hurting him.

Xander's eyes had shifted to keep Harmony in view. Now, tears trickled out of them, as he again made a sound past the oxygen mask. "Hhharrrr…." On the bed, Xander's left arm slowly twisted to bring his palm up, his fingers barely crooking.

Harmony instantly dropped to her knees, her face descending to kiss the center of Xander's palm numerous times. Tears dripped from her eyes as she felt his fingers gently caressing her face.

Melody was herself crying, standing at the foot of the bed holding the broken body of the boy (*the man!*) who had been willing to die to protect her child.

The woman stood there, listening to her daughter croon softly to the person who had won her heart, and finally she stepped to join Harmony at the side of Xander's bed, bending down to gently urge her child up. "Harmony, we can't stay too long, his friends want to be here, too," murmured Melody.

This overcame Harmony's reluctance to leave Xander, and she got up and moved aside to let her mother approach Xander. Standing at the side of his bed, Melody grasped Xander's left hand with both of her hands, receiving a feeble squeeze from him.

"Xander, I want to tell you something. Squeeze my hand if you understand." Squeeze.

"You're going to be okay, but you need to stay here for a couple of days. Harmony and I will visit you as often as possible. Do you understand?" Squeeze.

"When you get out of here, you need to be cared for. You're going to stay with us. Yes, in our home. Understand?" No squeeze. Instead, Xander looked blankly at Melody.

Still holding on, the woman bent down to whisper directly into Xander's left ear. "You saved my child. You. Are. Family."

Melody straightened up and directed a stern, mom-glare at Xander Harris. "Don't you DARE think you're going any place but our home, and that's final!"

A moment later, she received a squeeze. Then, Xander winked at both women.

A half-laugh/half-sob came from behind Melody, and her daughter's arms came around her in a loving embrace, the chin of the child resting on the mother's left shoulder. Both women looked down to see Xander's eyes close and his breathing change to quiet steadiness.

Melody gently removed her hands from Xander's loose grip, and she turned, putting her index finger to her lips to tell Harmony to be quiet. The older woman then pointed to the door, and flicked her fingers to show her daughter they needed to go now.

Harmony hesitated, and then she reluctantly nodded and headed for the door, looking back at every step for one more moment's viewing of her beloved. Melody patiently followed her daughter out of the room, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible. Both woman walked down the hospital corridor with their arms around each other's waist and their heads close together.

At last, they came again to the hospital waiting room, where Buffy and the others were worriedly waiting. Instead of stopping to talk with the trio getting out of their chairs, the Kendall women continued walking towards the hospital front doors.

On the way, Melody just smiled at the Scooby Gang, and she used her free arm away from Harmony to wave behind her, granting them permission to visit Xander. Her arm came back to lift a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture to indicate they should be quiet. Harmony just walked along, holding onto her mother, not paying attention or giving any indication that Buffy, Willow, and Giles would need to make serious explanations in the near future.

Surprised at being ignored, the trio watched Melody and Harmony walk away from them out of the hospital. Uncertain glances were exchanged among the Scoobies, until Buffy finally said gruffly, "Come on! We really need to talk to Xander over….everything!"

As they headed toward Xander's room, Giles doubtfully said, "Buffy, he may be in no condition for any conversation at this time. At the very least, he may be fast asleep."

"I'll just announce when we get there that if he wakes up, me and Willow will flash him."

"BUFFY!"

"What, Willow? Ask Giles here if that wouldn't work on any teenage boy."

Rupert Giles barely maintained a proper British reserve as he followed his Slayer and his other daughter-in-heart squabbling together as they walked towards his warrior-son. The man shook his head in utter disbelief, sensing that life-changing events had occurred in just a few hours.


End file.
